There is a certain type of sermon one hears from time to time that has always bothered me. It goes roughly like this: "The reason the Jewish leaders of Jesus' own time rejected him was that their thoughts of the Messiah were earthly. They wanted a military Messiah who would set up a kingdom on earth. Therefore their minds were closed to recognizing and accepting Jesus for who he was."
The problem with this is that it gives the entirely false impression that an "earthly" concept of the Messiah was something manmade, that it arose simply out of the inexplicably "earthly" minds of the Jews of Jesus' time, and that it was their attempt to impose their selfish human desires onto God's plans.
But this is simply untrue.
Read the rest of this rather long and complex post at Extra Thoughts. Comments are directed there as well. Full comment moderation, which is not practical for us here at W4, is turned on at Extra Thoughts, and normal, constructive comments are welcome and will be published promptly.